Farmers in southern Alberta are dealing with flooded fields and waterlogged crops in the aftermath of this week’s pelting rainstorms.

From Pincher Creek to Fort Macleod to Lethbridge, fields are saturated and farmers are desperate to see the sun. Over 100 mm of rainfall has been recorded in places.

“The crop needs to get out of the water. It has to start drying up, or basically, it will drown,” said Rob Boras, a sugar beet producer in the Lethbridge area. “It’s not very often we say we’re going to have our best crops on the hilltops, but it looks like it might be that way this year.”

Too much moisture isn’t usually a complaint for farmers in this arid region, but this week, the rain came too fast and too hard.

In Lethbridge County, where a local state of emergency has been in place since Tuesday, farmers were being asked to reduce the impact on overburdened ditches and culverts by refraining from draining their fields. But crops — especially newly seeded ones — can only be submerged for a day or two before they die.

On Thursday afternoon, 20,000 wheat breeding rows at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre were under at least a foot of water.

“It’s a race against time,” said wheat breeder Harpinder Randhawa. “They may be OK for a day or two, so I’m hopeful we’ll be able to save some of them. At the same time, though, we’ve still got rain coming down.”

Magrath-area farmer Gary Stanford said the past week has brought the most rain he’s seen on his farm in “many, many years.” The gauge on his property was reporting seven inches of rainfall from Wednesday, June 11 to Wednesday, June 18 — a typical June would only see three inches for the entire month.

Stanford said he will likely have to reseed patches of land, and he expects most of his neighbours will have to as well. Still, he called the weather a setback, not a catastrophe.

“This is an area where we still use irrigation. I remember in the year 2000, we had less than one inch of rain from April 1 to October 1,” Stanford said. “So there will be some land that gets flooded out, but looking at the whole picture, I’d rather have too much water than not enough. I think once the sun comes out, give us a few days and we’ll be glad we got it.”

Julie Crilly, press secretary for provincial Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson, said the government is hearing reports of crop damage as well as damage to some irrigation system canals in the area. But she said the full picture is not yet known.

“Once the flooding eases, all of our staff and partner agencies will work together to assess the situation and provide a response,” Crilly said. “It’s still too early to have a full idea of what’s going on.”

The area affected by the heavy rains is home to Feedlot Alley, a nickname given to a swath of southern Alberta because of its high concentration of intensive livestock operations. But Crilly said while water management systems on the area’s feedlots are “overburdened,” there have been no reports of operators needing to release fluids from their holding systems.

Bryan Walton — CEO of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association — said feedlots are required to be built on higher ground and therefore tend not to be affected by floods.

“They’re going to get a little soggy, but that’s all,” Walton said. “I do know, though, that just as a precaution, people have been moving livestock out of low-lying areas along that whole river system.”

The rain was expected to taper off Thursday evening, and Environment Canada was calling for sunshine to return to southern Alberta on Friday.

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